


camaraderie

by katsidhe



Series: episode codas [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cage Trauma, Episode: s13e18 Bring 'em Back Alive, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Season/Series 13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 02:58:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14346561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katsidhe/pseuds/katsidhe
Summary: Set just before Sam's, uh, "inspiring" speech in 13x18.





	camaraderie

The rip in the fabric of the universe pulses steady and golden.  

There’s a trembling restlessness in Sam's legs. It’s almost a relief, after the molasses-thick weight of lethargic hopelessness that’s kept him moving as if through deep, black water. It would be a relief if it would stop spreading upward, infecting his heartbeat with a steady staccato panic he can’t shake. 

The grim uncertainty is making him sick. If Dean never shows, what then? Sam can’t assume he’s dead. He’ll never assume that again. Sam won’t let the portal seal. If it starts to close, he'll jump straight in. Cas will have to drag them all back.  _Sorry, Cas, I didn’t tell Dean to split the party._

Sam pictures his future: wandering a gray apocalyptic wasteland forever, dust in his mouth, while Dean and Mom and Jack all suffer under Michael’s hand. He survives, he stumbles on. He never finds them or any living thing, he just searches forever, not knowing if they’re screaming and cursing his name, or if he’s breathing in their ashes. 

Maybe he should keep Gabriel’s grace, instead of giving it back. A part of him wants to. Hell, Gabriel doesn’t even seem to want it, yet. But, Sam _can’t_. It's not his to keep. That would be cruel, even for Sam, to withhold such an essential part of Gabriel, especially when he’s hurt, when he obviously needs every bit of strength he can get. He flinches too often, it’s making Sam even tenser. Sam thinks of Cas with his grace stolen, sick and shivering and dying.

A voice in his head he doesn’t want to name whispers, _Ah, but our motives aren’t exactly pure as the driven snow here, are they_?  _Gabriel can't help us if he’s cowering in the corner like a bitch scared of its own shadow._  And okay, fine, a full-powered archangel on their side, indebted, with Lucifer still out there? That’s... a very nice thought. 

The archangel blade still sits heavy on the table. That’s a nice thought too, a sharp one. Sam feels his eyes land on it, from time to time, but he doesn’t let his glance linger. Hope can hurt more than despair.  

Sam looks at the rift again. The twining yellow light fills the room with an eldritch glow, the torn and bleeding edges of reality. He wonders if he’s getting some kind of radiation poisoning.

He shakes himself. Time to check up on their houseguest. 

* * *

Gabriel’s hunched into himself on the bed. His beaten face stays stiff and pale as Sam enters. 

Sam sets a glass on the nightstand. “Gabriel? You want some water?”

No response. Still not talking. Well, his lips have been sewn shut for who knows how long. Sam wouldn’t feel up to talking either.  

Sam clears his throat. "Or, um, we’ve got some Coke in the kitchen.” Why, Sam has no idea, no one in the bunker is really a soda drinker. Blame Dean’s overzealous grocery runs. Sam pulls a chair to the foot of the bed.  

Gabriel, surprise surprise, doesn’t react.

For a few minutes, Sam just sits, providing some kind of weird uncomfortable moral support. He's not very good at it, not when looking at Gabriel makes Sam's stomach curl in sympathetic recognition. The marks from the stitches are hard to look at. The perfect Enochian sigils laid out across all the walls are hard to look at. Where’d Gabriel even get the Sharpie? Unless he just clicked his fingers and the markings appeared, and doesn’t _that_ image set Sam’s teeth on edge.

See, Sam is intensely aware that no matter how broken he’s acting, Gabriel is a fucking archangel. Not necessarily a friendly one, either. Sam's moved on, but he isn’t ever likely to forget Mystery Spot, even with all the nightmares since. He may be low on power, but Gabriel can still vaporize Sam with a gesture. 

Which brings him back to what he’s been wondering all night: how the  _fuck_  did a B-lister like Asmodeus get his hands on an  _archangel_? Gabriel hadn’t elaborated, in the writing on the wall, and he’s sure as hell not saying anything now. 

How do these awkward overtures of comfort feel, to Gabriel? Back when Sam wouldn’t talk, Lucifer would cajole and coax until he came back to himself. Sam doesn’t know what kinds of games Asmodeus played, or if he cared for anything other than breaking his prisoner to harvest power. Maybe Sam’s making it worse, offering a sympathetic ear. 

Gabriel just sits, blank and empty, offering no helpful ideas. Too bad, because Sam’s fresh out. 

The only thing Sam has to offer is that he gets it. Sam gets Gabriel, gets him enough it’s making his shoulders stiffen. He  _gets_ feeling like running, feeling like hiding, feeling like shutting down and shutting up and curling up into a ball and hoping if he’s small enough, the pain will leave him alone. But Gabriel needs to learn that there’s no such thing as being left alone. Running and hiding are just illusions. You gotta learn to cope, you gotta adapt, you gotta learn to live with it, take the horrible parts and make them bearable. It’ll be better sometimes, it’ll be worse sometimes, but it won’t change. It won’t end. 

Sam’s made his peace. It’s Sam and Dean and Cas against the world, Team Free Will, spitting in the face of fate. Except, that is what they’re  _fated_ to do, isn’t it? Sam’s destined to stay and fight no matter what. How many times has Sam been dragged back? From death, from his mind, from his own mistakes? From his own selfish escapism—Amelia, Jess, all the way back to Bones, that first time he’d tried to run away. Sam’s learned, by now, _safe and boring_ is worse than a pipe-dream: it’s betrayal. The universe doesn’t need to teach him that particular lesson, not anymore. This is his life. He’s making the world better. He won’t try to run. 

Sam lets out a breath and gets up, but as he touches the door, he pauses. He turns around and takes a breath. 

Gabriel needs to know: as long as the world needs him, he can’t run either. 

**Author's Note:**

> look, I got a [tumblr](https://katsidhe.tumblr.com/) just like all the cool kids


End file.
